aloud. 'Though
I doubt we'll be doing much cut-an'-thrust on this commission.' He bared his uneven teeth in a grin. 'Us bein' a flagship an' all! '
Adam heard the sentry tap his musket on the grating outside the screen door.
'Midshipman o' the watch, sir! '
Bowles was across the cabin before Adam had seen him move, but he turned just briefly, like a conspirator, and said, 'Mr. Vincent, sir.'
Adam faced the door. He had met Vincent, Athena's senior 'young gentleman', but he doubted if he would have remembered his name after only four days. Almost due for examination for lieutenant. The first major step from warrant rank to quarterdeck. A King's officer.
The midshipman stepped smartly into the cabin, his hat beneath his arm. He was almost eighteen, but looked older, and very self-confident. He was in charge of Athena's signals, and Adam had seen him shouting at one of his men only a few feet away, as if he were stone deaf or a complete fool. Stirling had been nearby but had said nothing. Adam thought of the much-hated midshipman in Unrivalled, Sandell, who had gone missing over the side one night.
'Yes, Mr. Vincent, what is it?'
'There is a man who wishes to see you, sir.' He had narrow nostrils which were flared now with obvious anger. 'Insists, sir! '
Adam looked past him and saw Jago waiting by an open gun port a bag swinging back and forth in his hand.
'My coxswain, Mr. Vincent. He has access to me whenever so required.'
Vincent was not the sort to make stupid mistakes. Jago's expected time of arrival had been in the order book almost since Adam had read himself in to the ship's company.
He said, 'But only officers were allowed free access, sir.'
Adam smiled, disliking him, and hoped it was convincing. 'That was then, Mr. Vincent. You may return to your duties.'
The door was shut again and they stood facing one another, awkward despite what they had shared. Separated, perhaps, by the ship, a stranger to them both.
Adam gripped his hand. 'It is very good to see you, Luke.' He felt the smile breaking through and realized just how acute the loneliness had been. In the night watches, lying in his cot,
staring into the darkness, listening to the occasional tread of a watch keeper the angle and bearing of each sound still unfamiliar. Or the movement of rigging, the slap of water alongside, two decks down now.
Jago grinned. 'You too, Cap'n. I see the chair got aboard safely?'
'Have a tot and tell me about everything. I want to hear it.' He sat down on the stern bench, his legs apart, his hands clasped, the young captain again.
Jago held up his fist. 'Two fingers of grog, an' one of water, if it's clean! '
Adam smiled. 'You will soon get used to my cox'n, Bowles.'
Bowles nodded doubtfully. 'And a cognac for you, sir.'
The door to the pantry clicked shut.
Jago glanced at the chair again, at the broad, curving deck beams and the glistening paintwork; felt the slow movement of the hull.
'No fifth-rate, sir. Bigger than we're used to.' He half-listened to the squeal of calls, and the clatter of tackle as more stores were hoisted inboard to be stowed away.
Then he said lightly, 'She'll suit, sir. 'I'll something better is offered! '
Adam felt his muscles relax, and accepted, perhaps for the first time, how deeply the change had affected him.
'And what about young David? Did it go off all right? I wish I could have been there.'
Jago thought about it, recalling the final handshake, the sudden anxiety, the ship rising above the boat he had unofficially borrowed for the occasion. He still found it hard to believe that he had even cared. That he still did. It went against almost everything he knew.
The challenge yelled down from the ship's side, and his own firm and immediate response.
'Mr. Midshipman Napier, sir! Coming aboard to join! '
Just another 'young gentleman'.
But he said, 'I was proud of him, an' that's a fact.'
He took the glass from Bowles as he stooped over them and added, 'An' he got his frigate, which is more than some can say! '
Bowles returned to his pantry as the cabin echoed with laughter.
Things might be very different, he thought as he polished glasses. They needed to be.
Jago wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
'Almost forgot, sir.' He groped into his jacket. 'Lady, er, Roxby, give me a letter for you.'
Adam put down his glass, his bowels like ice.
Jago was saying, 'I've 'eard you'll be goin' up to London again…?'
Adam flattened the paper on the bench and read it slowly. Some one had printed an address in large capitals. Almost a child's writing.
He heard himself answer, 'Yes. Two days' time. The Admiralty. Final instructions, I believe.' His brain refused to concentrate. Even Nancy 's scribbled words made no sense.
It is all I was given. I am still not sure I should have told you.
Adam was on his feet without realizing it, one hand on the back of the chair.
'I am still a stranger to London. I marvel that people there can find their way from one street to another.' He was making a fool of himself. 'The place they call Southwark? All I know of it is an inn called the George I took the coach from there to the George here in Portsmouth. That's all I can remember.'
Bowles walked from the little pantry, his head lowered as if he had been listening to something elsewhere in the poop. 'I knows Southwark, sir.' He pronounced it 'Sutherk'. 'I knows it, sir.' He moved one of the empty glasses, his mind far away. He was thinking of the tavern where he had once worked and had a room of his own. Of the din and upheavals when sailors came ashore from the ships moored on the great river, looking for drink and willing company. And the crimes committed in those parts, the ragged corpses which dangled from the gibbets at Wapping and Greenwich as grim reminders. 'It is changing with the times, I believe, sir. Not always for the best.' Even the hated press gangs had trod warily where he had lived by the Thames. 'Some parts, sir…' He raised his eyes, gauging the captain's mood. 'It's not safe to walk alone or unarmed.'
Adam nodded slowly, moved by his cautious sincerity.
'Thank you, Bowles. That was well said.'
He walked to the stern windows and looked down into a lighter which was being warped beneath the counter. Faces peered up at him. There was a woman, her legs uncovered, displaying a basket of bright scarves, grinning broadly. They could have been invisible.
Nancy was afraid of offering him hope. But suppose her information held the truth? That for some reason Lowenna needed him?
Tonight he was being entertained by his officers, in his own ship, as was the time-honoured custom. Two days from now he would be in London, with Bethune. More secrets, although Jago had heard about the trip within an hour of stepping aboard.
He turned his back on the glittering water and overlapping masts and said, 'Can you read this, Bowles?' He held out the letter.
'Sir?' His eyes merely blinked, but it sounded like of course.
Adam cursed his own impatience. 'I meant no disrespect.'
The big nose trained round again. 'None taken, sir.' He almost smiled. 'In my old trade, the merchants I dealt with would rob you blind if you couldn't read and unravel their accounts! '
He held the letter to the reflected sunshine. 'I knows that street, sir. Some wealthy folk lived there, but they fell on hard times. I'm told that things is very different now. There was some talk that a new dock was to be built close by.' He handed back the letter and added apologetically, 'Unless you needs to go, sir…' He did not finish.
